The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed a settled injunctive action charging Joshua Levinberg, an executive vice president of Israeli company Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd, with insider trading for purchasing stock in Scopus Video Networks Ltd, an Israeli company that was about to be acquired. Levinberg’s trades netted him nearly $190,000 in unlawful profits when public announcement of the subsequent acquisition of Scopus by a third company caused the stock price to soar.

The SEC alleges that Levinberg learned in late 2008 that Scopus was going to be taken over when Gilat was approached by a Scopus officer and asked to submit a bid for Scopus. Through continuing contacts between the Scopus officer and Gilat, in which Levinberg was involved, Levinberg learned material, non-public information concerning the sale of Scopus. Shares of Scopus traded on the NASDAQ at the time.

According to the SEC's complaint, filed in federal district court in Manhattan, after the contact by the Scopus officer, Levinberg bought a net total of 102,172 shares of Scopus. When Scopus publicly announced the agreement to be acquired, on December 23, 2008, its stock price jumped approximately 41 percent, from $3.84 to $5.40 per share. The SEC's complaint alleges that Levinberg reaped an illicit profit of $187,996.48 on his stock purchases.

Levinberg, without admitting or denying the allegations in the SEC's complaint, has agreed to a permanent injunction from further violation of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. He has also agreed to pay a total of $383,463.36, comprising disgorgement of his trading profits, prejudgment interest and a civil penalty equal to his trading profits.